Bank of America [BoA], the second largest bank in the United States based on assets held, signaled their concern for the cryptocurrency community. The North Carolina-headquartered bank secured a patent for a cryptocurrency risk detection system.

According to an April 30 filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office [USPTO], the patent granted to BoA is primed on a risk detection system specifically geared towards virtual currencies. On the basis of the system, a risk score will be levied on cryptocurrency transactions between a customer and a third party.

The statement read:

“As technology advances, financial transactions involving cryptocurrency have become more common. For some enterprises, it may be desirable to calculate the risk for performing a cryptocurrency transaction.”

Bank of America, through this patent, aims to maintain the transparency and trustworthiness of cryptocurrency transactions, thereby ensuring that the risk taken is lowered.

The patent’s abstract suggested that the system will include a “processor” that can receive a request from the customer to perform a crypto-transaction with a requested third party. Here on in, the processor may perform a slew of functions, retrieve blockchain information, determine the value of crypto in the transaction or calculate the “risk score” of the transaction based on the preceding factors.

More than one processor can be integrated on the system so that a number of aspects within the transactions can be tagged simultaneously. The document highlighted the public key usage, transaction history and crypto-units in question. As mentioned earlier, the risk score will also be assessed and a score will be assigned.

The risk score determines whether the transactions fall under the suspicious category, indicating whether a further investigation into the transaction is required.

In August 2018, the bank filed for a patent for a cryptocurrency storage system that would allow companies to seamlessly store their cryptocurrency-related transactions. This patent was officially granted to BoA in October with the title “hardened storage device,” creating a protocol to store cryptographic keys.

Furthermore, BoA has previously attested to the technology that propels the cryptocurrency space, blockchain. In a study released last October, the analysts at the American bank highlighted companies like Amazon and Microsoft that can be major beneficiaries of blockchain technology implementation.